RATING: VERY GOOD
SPOILERS!!!
I really loved the book, and I enjoyed reading about these historical characters.
Lady Lydia finally comes out of the coma, and at first she does not remember anything. When Sir Theodisius sends word to Thomas, he rides to Broughton Hall at once. As soon as she sees him, Lydia starts remembering. Some days later Lydia and Thomas go to London. Lydia’s memory is not completely back, but she knows that she ended the betrothal to Thomas. On the way to London they are assaulted by a highway, and when the bandit snatches Lydia’s brooch and runs away, some memories come back to her.
Lydia then tells him why she got so upset that night. The person who she saw was John Hunter, and Lydia tells her that after she and Michael eloped, she got pregnant. Lydia hoped that he would marry her then, but then one night Michael brought Dr Hunter, and he forced her to lie down and injected something into her stomach. Lydia says that she has feared that Thomas would hate her and that is why she broke off their engagement. Thomas reassures her and says that she could never hate her, especially as she hasn’t done anything wrong.
In London Thomas suspects that the person who killed Cappelli is Hunter and his thug, Crouch. Thomas tells Giles Carrington, his disciple, about his suspicion, and Carrington tells him that he will get into Hunter’s room, where he keeps his specimens. After that, Carrington tells Thomas that he saw a jar with a larynx, and that means that Hunter is a killer.
As Thomas is trying to find out who killed Capelli, Charles Byrne’s condition gets worse. His wish is for his body to be dropped in the sea, so he talks to Emily’s father, Mad Sam, and other Irishmen. Hunter has sent his servant, Howison, to harass Charles, and there are other surgeons who also wait like vultures. Then Mad Sam and his men stand outside the house and scare away the vultures. Charles dies, and Thomas gets everything for his body to be carried to Margate. Lydia, Emily, and Carrington will go there as well as Mad Sam and his men.
In the meantime Hunter is plotting to steal the body, and he engages the services of the undertaker as well as his usual thugs. Thomas stays behind after Lydia and the others go as he needs to confront Hunter about the murder of Capelli. When Thomas goes to see him, Hunter says that there is no jar with a larynx in his room, and when Thomas questions why Carrington would want to incriminate, Hunter says that the young man has a grudge on him because he blames him for the death of his father. Hunter treated his father, and he died. Hunter hints that Carrington could be the murderer, and fearing for Lydia Thomas rides after her.
That night Thomas has to stop and stay in an inn. Lydia and the others are close to Margate, and that night Sam and the Irishmen get drunk. That is when Hunter’s men change the body for stones. The following morning the coffin looks the same, so they think that although the men got drunk, nothing has happened to Charles. The party reach Margate, and while the coffin is loaded on a ship, Hunter’s men are driving Charles’s body to London.
Lydia, Emily and Carrington stand on a hill, watching the ship in the distance, and Emily reads a psalm. Thomas gallops to them, and then he confronts Carrington, who admits to having Capelli’s larynx but he denies killing him. When Thomas tells him that the constables will arrest him, the young man jumps on Thomas’s horse and rides away. However, the horse throws him and Carrington dies.
Back in London Thomas is still worried about Leonardo. A couple of days later he goes to see Hunter, and the man is cagey, telling him that he is too busy. When Thomas follows him into his laboratory against Hunter’s wishes, he is shocked when he sees the skeleton of a giant, and he realises that Hunter got hold of Charles’s body. Another shock he gets is when he discovers that someone in his circle betrayed him and Charles. It was the count who is there, and the short man says that Hunter came to him because he wants his body, and Josef made a deal with him. He promised to get him the body of the giant. Thomas is horrified, and silently he decides to keep quiet about Charles because it would hurt Lydia and Emily and there is nothing they can do.
Thomas discovers who the actual killer is when he checks Capelli’s hotel room once more. He finds a short black hair and an alum block, something used by barbers, strange when Capelli had no facial hair. Next Thomas goes to find the maid, Marie, who is the daughter of Dubois, the killer. Marie says that she has nothing to say, and then Dubois and his son Jean Luc appear, and when they realise that Thomas knows the truth, they try to kill him. Thankfully, Thomas had left a note with his suspicions for the coroner, and he and the constables got there in the nick of time. Dubois, his son and daughter are arrested, and Leonardo finally leaves prison.
The last chapter of the book takes place a few months later. Thomas and Lydia are together in her home, and Lydia reveals the last part of her confession. Lydia says that Hunter didn’t abort her child; Michael married her and she had her son. However, a few days later she was told that the child had died but she was not allowed to see him. Lydia was devastated, but Michael wouldn’t talk about the baby. Some years later she was going through his desk, and she discovered some papers which indicated that Michael had hired a wet nurse, and then Lydia learnt that her son had not died but had been sent to a workhouse. Now Thomas tells her that if her son is alive, they will find him. So I imagine that this is something we will discover in the next books.
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